About Ellen Berkenblit

For more than 30 years, Ellen Berkenblit has been exploring line in her large-scale, exuberant paintings, combining an Abstract Expressionistic style with comic strip characters of her own invention. Though the recurring figure of a young girl and her animal consorts suggest narratives, Berkenblit sees these figures as collections of lines, devices that organize and drive her overall composition. As she explains: “The figures I choose have one purpose: they carry the line that I wish to draw. The figures are not symbolic; they don't represent anyone or anything in particular. They are the perfect excuse to get the first line going.” In Tigers vs Witches (2013), the profiles of a tiger and a witch face each other across the canvas. Their kinetic lines lead the eye to the deftly composed abstract shapes and colors filling and animating the work.